Impact of Mg2+ Ion on the Structural, Morphological, Optical, Vibrational, and Magnetic Behavior of Mg:ZnAl2O4 Spinel

In this work, Magnesium-doped zinc aluminate nanoparticles are synthesized using microwave combustion technique by employing L-alanine as fuel. The incorporation of Mg2+ ions plays a pivotal role in influencing the optical, structural, and magnetic properties of zinc aluminate nanoparticles. The synthesized nanoparticle are characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), high-resolution scanning electron microscopy (HR-SEM), energy dispersive X-ray analysis (EDX), diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS), and vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM).The XRD patterns confirmed the formation of single-phase cubic spinel structure of ZnAl2O4 (gahnite). The average crystallite sizes estimated from Debye-Scherrer is found to be in the range of 6 to 12 nm. HR-SEM images revealed the spherical morphology with uniform distributions. The optical bandgap of the synthesized nanoparticles is found to be in the range of 5.45 eV–5.76 eV. Magnetic measurement reveals that pure and doped zinc aluminate nanoparticles have superparamagnetic nature. These obtained results of Zn1-xMgxAl2O4 (0 ≤ x ≤ 0.5) are found to be well suited for optoelectronics, magnetic, and catalytic applications.